ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the section of Immanuel Kant’s Doctrine of Right called “The Right of a State”, which is an architectonic masterpiece presenting a thematically and architecturally self-contained concept. This Doctrine of Right, published in 1797 as the first part of The Metaphysics of Morals, has been largely ignored not only by nineteenth- and twentieth-century legal theorists but even by Kant scholars. “Public Right” includes “The Right of a State,” “The Right of Nations,” and “Cosmopolitan Right.” Although no such phrase as separation of powers appears in Kant’s printed works, a short sketch of a theory on this very subject can be found in the first subsections of “The Right of a State”: the state consists of three powers, each of which expresses, respectively, the three independent elements of a practical syllogism. Kant finishes the main text of “The Right of a State” with a theory for reforming an existent state into a true republic.
